As Xi climbed the Communist Party ranks, his extended family expanded their business interests to include minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment, according to public documents compiled by Bloomberg.

Those interests include investments in companies with total assets of $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare- earths company with $1.73 billion in assets; and a $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company. The figures don’t account for liabilities and thus don’t reflect the family’s net worth.

No assets were traced to Xi, who turns 59 this month; his wife Peng Liyuan, 49, a famous People’s Liberation Army singer; or their daughter, the documents show. There is no indication Xi intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, or of any wrongdoing by Xi or his extended family.

While the investments are obscured from public view by multiple holding companies, government restrictions on access to company documents and in some cases online censorship, they are identified in thousands of pages of regulatory filings.

Qi Qiaoqiao, the older sister linked in the article to many of the assets, has long had a reputation for greed. Bloomberg states explicitly that it found no evidence that Xi helped her or his other relatives in their dealings. It is possible that many people offer Qi and Xi’s other relatives opportunities in the hopes of currying favor with the “future first family”, even when no quid pro quo is promised or provided, just as people gave opportunities to Li Wangzhi, Bo Xilai’s first son, even though he had not spoken with his father in years. Regardless, this is yet another example of the abuse of power, or proximity to power, for money that has so many Chinese so cynical and dissatisfied with the government, and very few if any will believe that Xi is at least not aware of his extended family’s activities. Given Bloomberg’s strict reporting standards it is quite possible there are many more assets the reporters suspect belong to the family but did not include as they could not provide conclusive proof.

By sticking to public filings and verifiable facts Bloomberg avoids some of the traps of China political reporting that former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief Geoff Dyer warned about in a recent Foreign Policy piece. Bloomberg does not give us speculation or whispers about purported factional fighting or investigations, but when so much in China is really about the money it is good someone is trying to follow it. Is Bloomberg doing a better job at it than the US or Chinese governments?

Bloomberg contacted China’s Foreign Ministry for comment before publication, which likely explains why Bloomberg.com was blocked in China beginning Thursday. After publication two official Bloomberg Weibo accounts–@bloomberg彭博 and @彭博商业周刊中文版–disappeared from Sina Weibo, and as of this writing a search for “Bloomberg” on Baidu returns with the message “according to relevant law regulations and policy, part of the results cannot be displayed.” So far there are no reports of Bloomberg Professional access problems in China, which would be a very significant move given both the importance of Bloomberg machines to participation in global financial markets and the elite nature of terminal subscribers.

Bloomberg may have damaged its future business prospects in China but it is proving again that it may now be best news organization in the world. The billions of profits from the subscription business relieve Bloomberg News of many of the financial pressures stifling other media organizations, and in the US and Europe it has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to report negative news and write unfavorable editorials about the banks and financial institutions that provide material amounts of Bloomberg’s revenue. China will harm its reputation in the global financial markets and damage its aspirations to make the Renminbi into a reserve currency if it disrupts access to the Bloomberg terminal network or forces Bloomberg to downsize its editorial presence in China. Blocking Bloomberg.com is an annoyance, but the real players rely on the subscription service.

That a country will seek to block the internet when the wealth of its humble leaders is exposed is expected. However, what is unexpected is that the hidden assets of China’s president in waiting are rather easily discovered is troubling: it means Goldman has still muchwork to do in China, and much more advisory work to the country’s elite over how to best hide its assets in various non-extradition locations around the world under assorted HoldCos. Just like in the US. The good news, for GS shareholders, however, is that this indeed provides a huge new potential revenue stream.

Who is next for the Bloomberg reporters, and when do they start collecting their prizes?

The best way to read this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still mostly blocked by the GFW. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions/donations are welcome, and feel free to forward/recommend to friends. Thanks for reading.

At least he has not starting smearing Panda poo on the flag. Not yet at least///China on Friday called Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara’s proposal to name a panda cub a “cheap farce.”…”Pandas are envoys of friendship,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news briefing in response to a question on Ishihara’s proposal…Ishihara proposed Thursday that if a panda currently leased from China gives birth to a cub at a Tokyo zoo, it should be named after the so-called “Senkaku Islands” (China’s Diaoyu Islands)….”If a cub is born, it should be named ‘Sen Sen’ or ‘Kaku Kaku,'” Ishihara said, as quoted by media reports….”We will (eventually) return a panda cub (to China), right?” Ishihara said. “Our counterpart would at least be able to exercise sovereignty” over a panda with the name of the islands.

A senior Chinese official has called for more efforts in promoting contemporary Chinese Marxism, to enhance public faith in the country’s political theory amid growing social conflict.
Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in a written instruction to a political theories seminar held on Friday.

Xin Yingheng, whose monastic name is Shi Yong-xiu, became a monk after his divorce in 1979 and was later elected abbot of Lingzhao Temple in Yuxi city, Yunnan province.
In 2010, two young men killed him during a robbery. He was 63. After his death, it was discovered that he had more than 3 million yuan ($476,000) in his bank account.
His daughter, Zhang Yiyun, 36, came forward to claim the funds as the monk’s only heir. But the temple declined her request, saying that monks’ possessions come from the temple and therefore should return to it.

Banks saw their wealth products become much more popular last year after the inflation rate began to outpace deposit interest rates by the greatest distance seen in three years. That trend is continuing this year.
But the returns on such products are declining as the rate of inflation decreases and monetary policies are loosened, analysts and banking executives said.

The report said macro easing will pick up momentum as the world’s second largest economy is going through a widely expected slowdown and inflation is under control..
another “4-trillion” stimulus package is not likely, said Huang Wentao, chief macro-economic analyst with China Securities Co.
The country’s public debt as a percentage of GDP has surpassed a safe minimum of 60% to reach 68% by the end of 2011 and China’s debt ratio is likely to hit as high as 85%, factoring in
invisible debts including pension shortfall and bad loans in commercial banks, Huang explained, “there’s little room for fiscal policies.”
He estimated GDP growth would go up at a steady pace to 7.9% in the fourth quarter after bottoming out in the second quarter at 7.8%.

The shale gas revolution in the United States has led to some fervent debate in China: How can China also begin to develop shale gas? Can the United States really achieve energy self-sufficiency? If it can, what are the implications for China?

The head of a district branch of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau has been removed from office, the municipality’s website said on June 28.
The official was Wang Pengfei, chief of the Yubei District branch. He was dismissed on June 25.
Separately, Chen Cungen, director of the municipal standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), said a dismissal proposal had been approved at a meeting on June 26, the Chongqing Daily reported. The resignation of a deputy to the NPC was also accepted, he said. The identity of the deputy was not reported.

Renowned columnist and magazine publisher Hung Huang posted an update to her Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblog account today saying “How come I’ve got a crown next to my name all of a sudden?” Commenters replied that Hung “got membered” – i.e., was made a premium member of Weibo by Sina without her knowledge or payment for the service.

Deng Jiyuan slipped away from the city of Ankang in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province and arrived in the Chinese capital on Thursday morning after trying and failing to spirit his wife, Feng Jianmei, out of a local hospital the previous Friday.
“I came to Beijing in search of help,” Mr. Deng told The Wall Street Journal after meeting with reporters Friday afternoon in the office of a Beijing-based lawyer who has been assisting the family.

Johnson Chang’s art project is in a suburb called Jinze, but as I discovered after checking in at the Fairmont Peace Hotel—an icon of Shanghai’s 1930s decadence, where Charlie Chaplin kept a suite and Noël Coward wrote Private Lives—the name isn’t listed in any guidebook

Gazprom’s projects in the resource rich South China Sea have come under question after the Chinese oil Company CNOOC offered foreign companies licenses on the Vietnamese shelf already granted to Russia’s energy giant.

Etched into the base of Google’s new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”..Since the 1990s, one American company after another, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple, has become a design and marketing shell, with production shifted to contract manufacturers in Shenzhen and elsewhere in China…Now that trend may be showing early signs of reversing.

Public mistrust of the central government in Beijing is at its highest since the handover in 1997, while approval ratings for Leung Chun-ying, the incoming Hong Kong chief executive, have dropped sharply before his inauguration.

Income dropped 5.3 percent from a year earlier to 390.9 billion yuan ($61 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website today. That compares with a 2.2 percent decline in April and 4.5 percent gain in March.

, the growing importance of the Chinese market to major auction houses, and its massive presence on the world stage means it is important to turn a critical eye to areas that deserve a closer look. But to understand where the Chinese art market is now, and how it got there, takes more than a few Google searches. Lower auction volumes and less dazzling auction totals may simply reflect a maturation of the young market; now that collectors are hanging onto their artwork for longer (rather than flipping them, speculator-style), we can expect to see volumes lower and fluctuations occurring. But at the same time, as work by the blue-chip contemporary Chinese artists of the 1990s becomes harder to come by, coming years will see the emergence of newer artists whose sales will pick up the slack. Still, it’s difficult to argue that Chinese buyers have turned away from top-quality contemporary art when three paintings by blue-chip artist Zeng Fanzhi, formerly held in European collections, sold in Hong Kong to Chinese collectors earlier this month for a total of US$9.7 million, each surpassing high estimates

The Chinese government now has at its disposal an informed and engaged public along with NGOs committed to a better environment. So instead of wasting time, Beijing should seize the moment, tap into the energy and concern of the Chinese people, and mobilize them around a real initiative to address the challenge at hand.

A steep drop-off in China’s crude-oil imports from Iran earlier this year, which companies involved blamed on a contract dispute, has provided a face-saving way for Beijing to appease the U.S. even as it officially maintains opposition to U.S. sanctions against Tehran, analysts said….The U.S. decision on Thursday to exempt China from penalties targeting financial institutions that do business with Iran’s energy sector came after data showing that China’s imports of crude from Iran over the first five months of 2012 were down almost 25% from a year earlier.

This article examines the profound transformation market reforms have brought to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rural grassroots organizations. Focusing on the political rise of private entrepreneurs and other economically successful individuals who recently obtained village Party secretary appointments in a north China county, the article explores their differing promotion channels, power bases, political resources and motivations to take up the CCP’s grassroots leadership position. It demonstrates that the variety among the new entrepreneurial Party secretaries – from large factory owners to de facto farm managers – shaped the network resource, factional affiliation and socio-political capital they rely upon to exercise their newly attained power. It also shows the crucial role played by community-based endogenous forces in transmitting the power of economic liberalization into dynamics for the reshuffling of the Communist Party leadership at the grassroots level.

i was at the blue frog on sanlitun a few weeks ago and the table next to me, with american accents so i assumed they were african americans, were discussing some kind of project in africa and one chimed in that it would be cheap because they would be using chinese prison labor//
A recent addition to the global discourse of China’s interaction with developing countries has been the claim that the Chinese government exports prison labour to these countries. While no evidence is ever presented to support this claim, it has been widely circulated in international and local media, as well as on the internet. This article examines the origins of the rumour and the mechanisms of its transmission. It shows that while the rumour often originates at the grass roots in developing countries, it is promoted locally and globally by political, economic and media elites with distinct agendas that often involve building support for opposition parties, competition in obtaining contracts, or geo-strategic and ideological rivalry. We analyse the rumour’s circulation in light of the larger discourse on China and developing countries, and discuss why Chinese official responses to the claim have proved to be ineffective.

That a country’s will seek to block the internet when the wealth of its humble leaders is exposed is expected. However, what is unexpected is that the hidden assets of China’s president in waiting are rather easily discovered is troubling: it means Goldman has still much work to do in China, and much more advisory work to the country’s elite over how to best hide its assets in various non-extradition locations around the world under assorted HoldCos. Just like in the US. The good news, for GS shareholders, however, is that this indeed provides a huge new potential revenue stream.

The hand-wringing is set to end on Saturday, the day the gaokao results are expected to be released. But even as next year’s crop of college freshmen draws closer to the moment of truth, the country’s social-media users are engaged in a spirited debate over whether it’s worth pursuing a higher education in China at all.

The consultancy partnered with Kantar Worldpanel to do what they claim is an “innovative study of 40,000 Chinese consumers from 373 cities in 20 provinces”. The report promises to help brands figure out “what Chinese shoppers really do but will never tell you”….First of all: don’t listen to what shoppers say, watch what they do. According to Bain, consumers are doing the opposite of what marketers thought they were doing.

Passengers and air crew subdued six people who attempted to hijack a flight 10 minutes after it took off from the remote desert city of Hotan, a heavily ethnic Uighur area that has been hit by recent bouts of violence, Xinhua news agency said.

China has no intention of confronting the US’ power. None of the 21 nations participating in the exercise would like to see a confrontation between the two in the Pacific, and neither does the US…The exercise cannot solve the problems the US is now facing.

David Vitter solicited funds from Adelson?//
The fired former chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Macau casinos alleges in court documents revealed Thursday that billionaire Sheldon Adelson personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company’s properties in the Chinese enclave.

BEIJING—Many Chinese exporters are starting to hoard the dollars they earn, betting that the yuan is unlikely to appreciate much more, a shift in strategy that is having a ripple effect throughout the country’s financial system.

eijing director Xu Tong’s second feature-length documentary Fortune Teller (Suan Ming, with English subtitles, available on Youku) details the story of a Buddhist handicapped man, Li Baicheng (pseudonym), and his deaf, mute, mentally disabled wife, Pearl Shi. The documentary won the Jury Prize at the Chinese Documentary Festival, was selected among the Best Ten documentaries at the China Independent Film Festival, and was an official selection for the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011. The documentary shows that Li’s hard life stems from not only from his handicapped condition, but also the lack of government aid and his unsteady job as an independent fortune-teller in poor regions of Hebei province.

India needs outside capital, and expertise in manufacturing and infrastructure. China must invest its surplus funds abroad, ideally not just in government bonds—as mostly happens in America—and ideally in countries that are not about to go belly up, as may happen in Europe. Chinese investment in India is an idea whose time has come, if only the two sides can conquer a legacy of mistrust.

The best way to read this blog is to subscribe by email, especially if you are in China, as Sinocism is still mostly blocked by the GFW. The email signup page is here, outside the GFW. You can also follow me on @niubi or Sina Weibo @billbishop. Comments/tips/suggestions/donations are welcome, and feel free to forward/recommend to friends. Thanks for reading.